


I Am Looking For A Quiet Place

by Moonsheen



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben Solo Lives, Breaking cycles of abuse, Established Relationship, F/M, Finn Cameo, Fix-It, Gen, Jedi Finn, Kill it if you have to, Let The Rise of Skywalker die, Metaphysics, Mission Fic, POV Original Character, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Redemption, Shades of Grey, Slice of Life, The Force, Worldbuilding, indoctrination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22321858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: On a planet made of domes, a little boy is asked by his grandmother to go gardening -- he meets a strange traveler named Ben instead.Ben Solo understands what it's like to be a little out of your head. He knows a thing or two about letting the past rule your present -- and Rey's taught him something about not repeating the same mistakes.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	I Am Looking For A Quiet Place

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [В поисках тихого места](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29084733) by [WTF Star Wars Sequels 2021 (Star_Wars_Sequels)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Wars_Sequels/pseuds/WTF%20Star%20Wars%20Sequels%202021)



> STAR WARS  
> EPISODE X
> 
> MY FANFICTION
> 
> THE FANS SPEAK! The RISE OF SKYWALKER did NOT happen. REY is not a PALPATINE. FINN discovers he's FORCE SENSITIVE and sets out to found a NEW FORCE SENSITIVE ORDER to IMPROVE ON THE JEDI ORDER. Meanwhile BEN SOLO and REY set out to find as MANY ABANDONED FORCE SENSITIVE CHILDREN as they can because that makes WAY MORE SENSE than whatever the hell the last movie did... please assume something happened to get them to this point. 
> 
> The dead do still speak, though.
> 
> We good? We good.

Grandmother always said not to waste time, so Nitwit didn’t. Nitwit was very keen to please Grandmother, she did so much for him.

Nitwit, go get some water, she said. Nitwit, pour it over your head, your face is filthy. Nitwit, eat some grubs, you’ll be useless by third moonset if you don’t. Nitwit, go plant the bulb in the garden. It’s about that time.

This last instruction was the one Nitwit had been expecting for the last triad. Grandmother was very particular about the bulb. She loved her gardening, though she no longer had the steady hands to see through herself. Through her instructions, Nitwit had prepare the bulb most diligently. He had fixed the little vines and twisted the little nodes to make sure it was at its biggest, its healthiest, its shiniest. It had sat in a little nest beneath the stoop where Nitwit lived. Nitwit had checked it every day. He never asked Grandmother it was time for the planting. Grandmother knew, and grandmother would say when it was ready. She always did. But today it was ready, and she told him so. So with trembling hands, Nitwit got out his leather post bag from the hook on the board and reverently swaddled and stowed it away.

“Which garden, Grandmother?” asked Nitwit. There were a lot of gardens in Sowu, after all. They needed them to breathe, beneath the dome. Air was hard to find naturally in Sowu. Air farming was the most sacred duty in the world -- so everyone had a garden.

“You know the one!” cried Grandmother.

“The one by the pool?”

“Oh, Nitwit,” sighed Grandmother.

“The one near the lifts?”

“You Nitwit,” grumbled Grandmother. “The one by the Bell Gardens, of course!”

Of course it was. The Bell Gardens were where the most important people on Sowu met. Grandmother had once been a very important person, before the bad times. That garden had been her favorite to go, and stroll, and argue.

“And wash your face again,” added grandmother, before Nitwit left. “Or you’ll never get near it.”

Important people hated when the children came to close to the Bell Garden, so Nitwit had to wait until after the second moon set to approach. That was the time when people had filtered out of the streets, and the safety officers got just a little bit sleepy. Nitwit didn’t take long. Grandmother was only up during the night, these days, and so Nitwit stayed up with her until third moonset. She told him many stories of the Bell Garden, the arguments they had there, and how marvelous it had been, before the Bad Times came and it became filled with the sort of people you wouldn’t shake your head at. Galactic types. Who didn’t understand order or quiet or any of the important things that kept an air-farming colony going for a proud five hundred cycles and counting. Aren’t you proud of that, Nitwit?

“Yes, grandmother,” said Nitwit. He didn’t know what the difference was between the 'Empire' and the 'First Order,' but he loved when grandmother was in one of her talkative moods. No one else ever talked to him that long.

“Oh, you Nitwit,” sighed Grandmother. “You don’t understand a thing about statecraft, do you?”

Nitwit didn’t understand a lot of things about what Grandmother wanted him to do, but he understood that statecraft, the bulb, and the Bell Garden were all very important to her,

The safety officers were dangerous. They liked to talk to people. Whenever they saw Nitwit, they’d ask so many prying questions, like, ‘Hey, kid, where are you staying?’ and ‘Want some ration bars?’ Grandmother said these questions were a trick. They would pack him off to processing, and he would never be seen on the streets again. One must never talk to strangers. Grandmother was always very good at looking out for him.

So best if they didn’t see you at all. Do when the safety officer paused to chat with the officer who’d come to take his place at the second moonset, Nitwit held his hood low over his face and crept past him, and squeezed through the gap in the steps up to the garden, through the undercroft and up into the garden proper.

Two hundred cycles ago, Bell Garden had been a place of worship (Grandmother explained, one of her longer stories), where people came and talked and drank water from the reflection pool with the hopes it would taste like the stars it reflected. People there once believed in becoming a part of all things -- which was a very silly thing to want, and no one wanted it anymore, which was why it was now just for important people who didn’t worship anything except stabbing others in the back.

They still sat around the reflection pool, which sat in a dark glassy diamond at the center of a circle of chairs. The benches faced the pool. It was a very pretty pool. They’d set up a trellis around it, so the climbing vines and the squeak flowers could climb. All around, greenery grew. The grated roof looked up on the most transparent part of the dome -- but don’t bother looking up, Nitwit. The only thing to see there are stars, and what’s the point of that?

Besides, Nitwit had a job. Nitwit had to plant the bulb. The pool was the most natural choice, of course. The outside of the bulb was shiny and hard, so the soft insides wouldn’t be bothered by the water. All he had to do was take it to the edge, rub its head to make it glow, and let it sink down to the bottom. Then all would be well.

The bulb was a big, unwieldy seed. It took a bit to unwrap it and set it on the edge of the pool. Grandmother said not to bother looking up, so Nitwit looked down instead, into the pool, where even beneath the trellis he could see the little points of stars. The rest of the galaxy.

“A rotten place,” Grandmother oft said. “Nothing but noise and treachery.”

He had to plant the bulb…

“It is noisy.”

Nitwit almost fell headfirst into the pool. He threw himself over the bulb, craning his head in alarm.

In the back row of the assembled chairs sat a man in grey robes. He sat hunched over, hands folded between his knees. Black hair hung over his long face, but when he glanced up, Nitwit got a glimpse of a pair of equally black eyes.

“How--” gulped Nitwit. “Who--”

“How did I hear her? Who am I? …heh.” The man stood up -- uncoiled, more like. He was impossibly tall as he stood up, taller than any man from Sowu. He walked down the row of chairs, touching the back of each as he went. His hair still hung in his face. “I’m a tourist.”

“An off-worlder,” realized Nitwit. He clutched the bulb. He knew he had to protect it. He knew this was exactly what he had to protect it from. “Grandmother warned me about people like you!”

The man smiled, a jagged, crooked thing, but when he got to the pool he didn’t raise his hand or produce a weapon. He sat down beside it, crossed his legs, rested his hands on his knees, and shut his eyes.

“What are you doing?” asked Nitwit.

“Looking for quiet,” said the stranger.

“In the middle of the second moonset?!”

“Night’s when it’s mostly quiet, right?” He cracked one eye open. “But I should ask you the same question.”

“I’m here because... because--”

“Because your grandmother told you to come here?”

“No.” Nitwit squared his shoulders and glared. The man tilted his head expectantly. Nitwit felt his courage wither like a poorly watered plant. “...Yes, but what’s it to you. I could call the safety officers.”

“You won’t call the safety officers.”

“Why won’t I?!”

“Because you’re scared of them.”

“I -- I am not!”

But the man said nothing, simply shut his eyes and went back to sitting besides the reflection pool. He didn’t even look into it like you were supposed to. Nitwit could practically hear Grandmother gnash her teeth. Wasteful off-worlder! Don’t you have gardening to do, Nitwit!

“I’ve got gardening to do,” said Nitwit, stubbornly.

The man didn’t open his eyes. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“I’m going to do it,” said Nitwit. “I really am.”

“I believe you.”

Nitwit held up the bulb -- what did Grandmother say to do? Press its head? Right -- but which end was up again?

Nitwit slumped down next to the stranger.

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Nitwit.

“Should you?” asked the stranger.

“You can’t just ask a question to avoid a question!”

“That’s life sometimes.”

“What does that even mean!” Nitwit glared.

But he slumped.

“There’s no such thing you know,” said Nitwit. “As quiet. You’re not going to find it here, or anywhere else.”

“Not right now, there isn’t.”

“So you should probably just go.”

“I can afford to wait.”

“Until the safety officers come in?!”

“It’s fine. I’ll just say I’m with you.”

“No you won’t!”

“So you’re not supposed to be here.”

“ARGH!” Nitwit threw himself across the ground in protest. He really had to get up. He could practically hear Grandmother snap at him: Nitwit, what are you doing on the floor. Get up, Nitwit. Get up.

Finally, the man opened his eyes and leaned forward, peering into the pool. He didn’t seem to notice his reflection. He looked right past it, and the reflected stars, down to the very bottom.

“She’s right about one thing,” he said. “The galaxy is a pretty noisy place. Treacherous? ...Sure. In some places. It’s noisier for people like you and me. When you hear everything, sometimes you hear things you wish you didn’t. From the past. From the future. Voices that don’t exist yet. Or voices that used to exist and shouldn’t anymore. You can’t really pick out which voice is which sometimes, but they tell you terrible things, about terrible things that haven’t happened yet, and how there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Sometimes it gives you headaches. Sometimes you just want to curl up somewhere quiet and dark and cry, but being alone just makes it all louder--”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

“I don’t cry.”

“I bet you want to sometimes. Everyone does.”

“And I’m not alone.” Nitwit sat up, chin raised in defiance. “I have Grandmother!”

He did! He did have, Grandmother! Her memory was so loud in his head it was like she was right next to him, digging her hand into his shoulder. Telling him: Good little Nitwit! Now don’t forget your gardening!

“You do,” allowed the stranger, “but you know she’s been dead for one hundred cycles, right?”

And suddenly it was just Nitwit and this strange off-worlder, alone in the Bell Garden. It’d always been that way. Nitwit, alone in the stoop. Nitwit, washing his face in the morning, with no one in the reflection but him--

“So?” asked Nitwit, because it didn’t matter. It really didn’t matter. There wasn’t that much difference between the living and the dead, anyway, so what was it to this weird off-worlder. “ _She_ talks to me.”

“I’m talking to you.”

“That doesn’t count,” said Nitwit. “You’re a stranger. I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

“I’m not a stranger,” said the man. “I’m Ben, and we’ve been talking for awhile now.”

They had been. Nitwit hadn’t even noticed how far the moon had moved in the sky. And he hadn’t even finished his gardening. Nitwit scowled.

“There are other people who could talk to you,” continued Ben. “If you want to.”

“Who says I want to.”

“Who says you don’t want to?”

“Grandmother.”

“Do you do everything she tells you?”

“Yes,” said Nitwit, and then, quietly, like a filthy secret he added: “....I--I try to--”

“Why?”

“Because -- I don’t know! Why should I know!”

Ben stood up. He had an odd, shambling way of moving, as though aching from some old injury -- though his face wasn’t old at all. He stood up to stare upwards at that loathsome sky, his profile sharp like a bird in the dark of the Bell Garden, lit by that narrow slash of moonlight that filtered through the dome.

“I’ve been there,” he murmured. “Believe me.”

Nitwit scrubbed at his face. It was wet again. When had it gotten wet? There wasn’t that much moisture in the air. He took his hands off the bulb and stood, trying to look as tall and weird as this weird off-worlder -- who wasn’t really a stranger, not anymore. But still, he was strange and different. And who said he had to listen to a word he said at all?

“What do you know?” asked Nitwit. “What do you know about anything?”

“Let’s see,” said Ben, not looking down at him. “I know your grandmother was a conservative cultist from one hundred cycles ago. She used to come here to the other ministers who’d agreed to allow more galactic workers to come and help them expand the dome. She was a pretty zealous isolationist who hated all off-worlders and most people, besides. I know she’d be happiest if this planet were just a dead rock. I know when she died she hated all these new people here so much that her anger has clung to the dome ever since, a little like a bad mold infestation. I also know she likes to attach herself to lonely kids without families. Especially lonely kids who know how to hear the dead. That everything?”

It very nearly was everything. “No,” said Nitwit, stubbornly.

“Right,” said Ben. He was looking at him then. His black eyes were a lot like the reflection pool. Nitwit looked away quickly before he saw too much, but it was too late. “I know you don’t really want to plant that bulb.”

“Hah,” said Nitwit. “Shows what you know.”

“Well, it’s your choice.”

And then, to his great confusion, Ben shrugged and turned to walk away. He’d made it just past the last step when Nitwit shouted after him:

“Aren’t you going to stop me?”

“No,” said Ben.

“Aren’t you going to try?”

“Why?” asked Ben. “You’ve had enough people choosing for you, right?”

“A bad thing is going to happen when I plant this.”

“Very probably.”

“You don’t want me to, do you?”

“Is it really about what I want?”

“Just tell me,” cried Nitwit, no longer caring if the safety officers heard him. No longer caring if Grandmother complained, because now he was crying, and he hadn’t cried in a long time -- because he didn’t, he didn’t cry. That’s just not what he did. “Tell me what to do, if you know so much, if you--”

But Ben just looked back at him and shook his head.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” he said, softly, “but I am going to give you two options. One is that I go, and you plant the bulb, and whatever bad thing you know is going to happen will happen, but you’ll have done what you’re told. The other is that you bundle that bulb back up, and you run cross down, to this little hostel over by the station, and knock on the door three times. You’ll find a woman in white who’s been staying there. She’s an off-worlder. She will look a little rough around the edges, like someone who’s had scars on her knuckles for most of her life, but that means she knows what the world is really like. She’ll offer you a hand. You can take it, if you want. But that’s your choice to make.”

“Who is she?” asked Nitwit.

“Quiet,” said Ben. Then he ducked down, into the shadows, and all Nitwit could hear were his footsteps vanishing into the dark.

* * *

It wasn’t a well made bomb -- it was easy enough to find the ignition line and detach it. Rey, who’d raided number of highly volatile damaged fuel cells in her day, did it in under a minute.

But it’d been a nasty one. She could tell from the crystals packed in the heart. So she swore a little when they finally went dim, and then hosed the whole thing down with a freezing agent, just to be one hundred percent sure it’d never glow again.

“That would have ripped this place open from top to bottom!” said Rey. “How on earth did he know how to make something like this?!”

The boy was curled up asleep in the berth. Despite his large, nervous eyes, he’d turned out to be a pretty deep sleeper. Once they were in orbit, he’d passed right out, and it was like he’d never had a real rest before in his life.

“He didn’t,” admitted Ben, peering at the remnants over her shoulder. He reached by her to touch them, scattering the pieces. “Yagga showed him. She’d been looking for someone with the hands for it for ages, probably. Smaller the better. Delicate work.”

“Oh, that witch,” swore Rey. “I’m of half a mind to shatter her across five systems! Ben, is there any way we can--”

Ben swept his hand left to catch hers, before she could use it to punch the wall of the cargo hold -- it might pop the paneling loose. The Falcon was good at responding to that kind of aggression.

“She’s gone,” said Ben. “She was only a memory. He’ll forget her in time and then she’ll be nothing.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” said Ben, lips quirking. “You’ll see to it. You’re good at that.”

The anger drained out of her, replaced by a weary acceptance. She was also comforted by touch. Especially from him. It reminded her they were both alive in this universe. It reminded her they were both individuals in this universe, despite how many voices flowed through them.

Rey kicked the remains of the bomb into the garbage container, to be sealed and jettisoned as soon as they were out of occupied space. She stomped down the pieces for good measure. She did it with not a small amount of prejudice.

“You should also eat something,” said Ben.

“I’m not taking self-care guidance from you, Ben,” said Rey, but there was no heat in it. When she’d finished screwing on the lid of the container, she smiled tiredly. “But thank you. I’ll take you up on that -- but tell me, how did you know that he wouldn’t plant it? Even I couldn’t see that. That whole place was such a… such a fog of memories.”

“All honesty?” Rey gave him a long look there, because they’d always promised each other honesty. “I didn’t.”

Rey’s expression went a little flat. “Ben, you didn’t just risk the safety of the entire colony on a hunch--”

“Oh, no,” said Ben, in innocence that was entirely affected, “but I knew if I offered him a choice he’d probably take it.”

Rey relented. “And why’s that?”

“Because he’d never had one before,” said Ben, smiling like a boy. “Worked on me, didn’t it?”

When she shoved his face as she stomped out of the cargo hold, it wasn’t entirely without fondness.

* * *

The children played ball in the field -- which shouldn’t have been strange, by most galactic standards -- but they were playing the game blind-folded, which was admittedly a little odd.

It should’ve been accompanied by a lot of shouting, tripping, and general injury -- but all Nitwit could hear was laughter and cheers. Not a single one of them got hit. Every single one of them knew where to find the ball. They kicked it and dodged each other effortlessly.

A group of adults were cheering from the sidelines. From the assembly of different species, they clearly were the children’s parents and guardians. As Rey approached, a young human man separated himself from the pack. Rey ran over and threw her arms around him, laughing as they spun around each other for a second -- each talking extremely rapidly about their various accomplishments in the last few months since they’d seen each other

At that moment, Nitwit knew this was someone he could trust.

“Where’s your shadow?” asked the man, peering over her shoulder in an exaggerated fashion.

“Where else? Hiding in the Falcon,” said Rey. “It’s just me. I did bring you a new student, though.”

She gestured at Nitwit. Nitwit shuffled forward, peering up through his hood.

The instructor knelt in front of him, grinning.

“Hey,” he said, sticking out a hand. After a moment of wavering, Nitwit took it. He was surprised at the warmth in it. It was like Rey’s -- calloused, from years of working weapons and machinery -- but somehow still so welcoming. “I’m Finn. What should I call you?”

“Nitwit.”

Finn blinked. “Nitwit! That your name?”

“It’s what Grandmother called me,” admitted Nitwit, a little sheepishly.

He looked up at Rey questioningly. Rey shrugged.

‘Wow,’ mouthed Finn, but he recovered easily enough.

“Yeah? Well, know what your parents called you?”

“Don’t remember them.”

“Friends?”

“Don’t have those.”

“Well, we’ll work on getting you all those things,” promised Finn. “In the meantime, what do you want to be called?”

“I… don’t know?”

“Well, let me tell you what: when you find one you really like? Let me know, and that’s what we’ll call you,” said Finn. “For now, let’s just say you’re a Skywalker. And we take care of each other. How’s that sound?”

The newest Skywalker looked up at his new teacher and smiled. “Quiet,” he said.


End file.
